


it was in your love that i found life (and it was in you that i found me)

by wartransmission



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Poetry, poetry collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2018-09-08 18:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 3,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8856391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wartransmission/pseuds/wartransmission
Summary: It was in you that I found the greatest gifts:these shared smiles, laughter heavy in my lungs,and warmth that goes beyondthe comfort of a coat, or a crackling fire.
A collection of poems on Viktor, Yuuri, and the love that ties their hearts together.





	1. under love, i did not bloom

here is the mistake of humanity:  
we see failure before anything else,  
take it as a strike against skill  
that we forget what good there still is.

and i have taken this to my chest, held it close,  
knowing i could have been better,  
could have been more  
had i just been less weak in heart.  
  
under love, i did not bloom.

i lived, sure enough,  
but i was stuck, a chrysalis in the making  
wondering what else there was to the world  
that had shut me out.  
  
there were hands to hold me up,  
words to cheer my soul,  
but it was not what this heart wanted,  
nor what it needed.  
  
under love, i did not bloom.  
  
but with it, i grew.  
  
you taught me grace, taught me strength,  
taught me what it meant when they said  
that the most beautiful diamonds were made  
under extreme pressure.  
  
you taught me that i was more  
than the fledgling boy they thought me to be,  
that i could be, would be, better still,  
and i love you for that.  
  
under love, i broke from my chrysalis.  
  
with you, i spread my wings.


	2. and i am greedy, wanting more of you  (yet you desire me, knowing this to be true)

realizing love is diving head-first into  
murky ocean water, the swooping fall of   
a stomach fluttering in nervousness  
dancing alongside a racing heart.

this is not novel, not a sudden bloom of love  
as it is the revelation of what has long been hidden  
in a heart full of fire  
and lungs full of want.  
  
this love, his love, is fuel to a quiet fire,  
kindling to a heart starved for what it needs:  
not water, not gentle warmth, but  
a blazing inferno, swallowing this ravenous spirit whole.


	3. if there was ever one thing you were thankful for, it is this: the world’s gift of life to him, leading him to you

it begins like this:

a slow, sweet seduction,  
finding pleasure in the temptation of  
unsullied innocence, showing off  
flushed cheeks and trembling lips.  
  
it was not love, not affection,  
as it was desire, painted red with  
passion and possessive want,  
knowing that this boy is yours  
and yours alone.  
  
he would be your magnum opus,  
the savior to your growing ennui  
and he would want you back, knowingly or not,   
if only because you have always been  
the only man on his altar of worship.  
  
it ends like this:  
  
his feet to your lips, your knees on the floor,  
his brown-eyed gaze hot on your skin  
as he tugs you close with all the certainty  
of a queen standing before her knight.  
  
what had begun as a chase is now  
a dance; his fingertips trailing fire  
through heaving lungs and  
a starving heart.  
  
it ends with you as his,  
and him as yours,  
with both hearts too closely intertwined  
to ever be parted.


	4. once, there was a boy (and he came just to steal your heart)

you fall in love with him the way  
shooting stars fall in love with the earth.

you fall with all the haste  
of a lover left forlorn,  
and burn with all the heat  
of a star first brought to life.

you fall as though it is the first  
that your heart has felt this way,

and it is.

a smile, brought to your lips.

a piece of your heart, cracked,  
taken away by fingers  
curled around a half-empty bottle of liquor.

a laugh, stolen from your mouth.

a piece of your lungs, breathless,  
taken when he drags you close  
and catches you in a dip.

a promise, stamped right into your too-hot chest.

your everything, marked,  
just to be his, and his alone  
for when he next asks for you.

a dance-  
_your_ dance-  
sung by his body, sweet and pleading,  
and posing the question.

“ _stay by my side,  
and never leave me._ ”

and so,  
you go.


	5. this is an ode to the boy who stole my heart (and never knew he had it)

you are in love, heart left open  
in the wake of his drunken highs  
and love-strong  
twists and turns.

you are in love, heart filled to burst  
with the song of his body,  
and the chorus rising from  
his ever-starving soul.  
  
you are in love, and your heart is his,  
freely given, readily offered,  
and yet  
  
       despite everything  
  
he does not realize this.  
  
he doesn’t understand the power he has  
over your every smile, every laugh  
every heartbreak, every heartbeat,  
because of an image he has written over  
his own chest.

he does not realize  
that he can have this kind of power at all.  
  
but he does.  
  
oh, he does.  
  
this heart beats a song of love, sings  
with all the life it has ever sung  
for a boy who has brought more to your world  
than he could have ever thought to give.


	6. something round and golden (for you to remember me by)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tHANKS SO MUCH FOR THE NICE COMMENTS OH My gOd i love all of u
> 
> also, i'm sorry for the sadness
> 
> [Ep11 was good fuel for my angst heart, I'm sorry,,,]

your story is an amalgam of  
his ascent from the ashes, wings of ice  
bursting forth into blooms of fire,  
and your descent into warmth from  
heaven’s icy constraints on  
bruised and frozen feet.

his story is yours, a man lost  
and looking for love on the ice  
and your story is his:  
a boy, watching and waiting and  
dreaming of all the world has to offer,  
and finding nothing in his path

until now.

(until you,  
and until him.)

your heart, so tangled with his that you cannot imagine  
having a life with him not in it  
will never be as warm, never be as full  
as when it was, when it is,   
as when he came  
and stayed.

but your stories  
are not as aligned as you thought they had been.

what you thought was a story of  
love returned, love eternal,  
love bound by golden rings on elegant fingers  
was not the same as the love he had written  
on his own heaving lungs.

his was the story of love proud, frozen in ice,  
but never bound, never lasting  
as the bruises and strength seeping cold  
from his exhausted body.

what you believed was a promise  
was his own goodbye,  
golden and possessive wrapped around  
the finger posing as your heart  
that has long been his when he first caught you.


	7. in the loneliness of this dance on ice, i found you (and you found me)

It wasn’t so much emptiness as it was  
the heavy weight of gold and expectations  
hanging like a noose around this neck  
that brought me to you.  
  
You were the answer that my heart  
never even knew it was looking for;  
a guiding star in the abyss of ice and winter,  
and warmth where there had always been none.  
  
You gave me life, gave me love,  
gave meaning to the imaginary longing  
this heart could not even begin to understand  
until you.  
  
You were everything I never thought I would need,  
everything I had only dreamed I would have,  
everything that I thought was unreachable  
in the loneliness of star-bright ice.  
  
And yet, here you are:  
  
beloved, sunlight in winter’s embrace,  
heart calling out to the ice with grace in your blood,  
and mine to hold, mine to keep,  
mine to love.


	8. here lies the end of you, and the beginning of a heart warmed by life and love

It’s not so much loneliness as it was  
an aching emptiness within your chest  
that forces you to look over the cliff  
where the end of your legacy lies.

“Here lies the end of Viktor Nikiforov,”  
it says, a portent not to your death  
but the death of all you are,  
and all you have ever been. 

(Beyond the gold medals, beyond your golden skates,  
who have you been? 

Have you ever been anyone, anything,  
other than this?) 

Then you find him, drunken and beautiful  
and bright with the shine of sweat and  
liquor on flushed skin,  
and you fall, even before you can realize it. 

“Be my coach!” he had said,  
chipping away at the cold heart begging  
for scraps of warmth within the cage of your ribs. 

Unspoken, sung by the music of his body, he asks,

“Be mine;  
stay close to me and never leave,” 

and for the first time in your twenty-seven years of life  
you give yourself over, hopefulness and fear  
warming your winter-frozen lungs enough  
to give life and love the space it needs  
to take root in your chest.


	9. this is the story of a lonely man who gave away his heart (and had another's for his own)

In loneliness I found your heart calling to me  
answering back the song of this soul  
with your own, hand raised in supplication  
as though asking for this lonely man’s hand  
back, in a dance of love  
after a moment’s revelry.

Perhaps I loved you then;  
with my body warm  
 _(finally, finally)_  
against your own, filled with the ecstasy  
they only speak of in fairy tales and  
impossible stories. 

Perhaps I had only loved an image,  
a mere facet to the whole of you-  
but _oh_ , you have made this heart so full  
with the highs of your body’s music  
and the quiet joys of your true soul.

Having fallen in love with that image or not,  
heart tugged to yours in that first dance or not,  
I love you now, in all your inexplicable depth  
and beautiful, wondrous grace  
singing the story of how you have always loved me  
(and now, the story of how we found each other  
and you made my heart yours.)


	10. the questions of a love-filled fool

was it impulse that brought you to a land so unlike your own  
or was it desperation, hunger,  
desire silenced for years  
until it grew into this ravenous beast  
wearing your face and voice?

was it love, when he swept you into his arms  
or was it the childish infatuation  
of a man lost in a desert  
imagining the reprieve of an oasis? 

was it pure, this desire that made you  
grant his wish for your time and company,  
or was it selfish, born from this wanting,  
hungering soul?

you don’t know.

how can you answer any of this?

how can you,  
when the lines have blurred, the memories  
so intricately intertwined with the now,  
that you can’t part that fluttering feeling in your chest  
with the soft affection ever-present  
in his warmth?

how can you say that it was or wasn’t love,  
that it was impulse or desperation,  
that it was selfless or selfish,  
when he loves you so much  
and you love him back?

how can you question any of this,  
when the golden bond of your rings  
continue to remind you that you are his  
and he is yours, evermore?


	11. imagine: you fall in love with a god (and he loves you back)

imagine this:

you are in love with a god  
and he is beautiful, otherworldly,  
enough that you feel like a mortal seduced  
with no control over your heart  
as you go to him.

in this world, where his every move  
surprises and bewitches you,  
he barely has to cast a spell  
to take your breath away 

(but it feels like he does,  
when he dances to the story  
of a man lovelorn and lonely,  
while calling for his heart back). 

in this world, where the hapless human  
is only ever a victim to the siren’s song,  
he sings a song of love for you and you alone,  
and says that you siren-called him right back  
into falling in love with you.

(how?

how could you have done such a thing  
when you can barely conjure the love you need  
for yourself?)

and yet, even knowing this,  
you place yourself inside the box  
Schrodinger’s cat once occupied  
with a question on whether or not this love exists  
if he is not with you.

when he is not there, you begin to ask  
“does he love me? does he love  
who i am, or does he love  
who he thinks me to be?”

“does he love the me  
who isn’t really me?” 

“does he love the me  
that he came to know,  
or the me that he thought he knew?” 

then he returns, heart-shaped smile and all,  
and you are reminded, again and a hundred times over, 

“Ah, so this is what it’s like  
to be loved so much that you forget  
that you were in love with a god  
as you are, now, in love with a man  
who would bring down the heavens  
if only to be closer to you.”


	12. and i will love you till the end of time, to you i swear

I was lost and you found me,  
wild and free and warm with life,  
leading to the beginning of the fall  
of this heart of mine. 

You were sunlight & rain,  
life-bringer to this desolate soul,  
and while I thought you to be  
the Galatea to this lonely man's Pygmalion,  
you taught me to know better  
than to believe that a man could be made for someone else. 

You were not made for me as you were  
a gift born into this world,  
with a path you chose of your own volition  
leading to me. 

You were not made for me as you were  
led into loving me, beauty and grace on ice  
in the same way that you’ve always,  
always,  
wanted to be  
(and you are, _oh_ , you are). 

Because how else could your heart, lonely as it was,  
learn to thrive, if not on the ice? 

How could your heart speak its soul,  
if not here, in the place where you found  
this similarly lonely, yearning man? 

You loved me before I even knew of you  
(and you don’t know this, but I despair  
of all the days I could have loved you sooner)  
and you love me still, even knowing  
the man behind this kind but careless façade. 

You have given me so much more  
than you could ever begin to comprehend,  
and so, with all your gifts safely kept  
in this love-full heart, I vow: 

My heart is ever yours and,  
with all the hope in my quivering lungs, I pray,  
your sun-warm heart will,  
in the same weight,  
be forever mine.


	13. you are the god of his heart (as he is the god of yours)

he tells you that his faith has never been in a god  
as it has been in his own hands and feet  
carrying him on the ice, fae-like and  
impossibly beautiful. 

you have your own gods, quiet yet  
noisy in the whisper of the wind,  
the trickle of rain,  
the roars of the ocean, 

but you can understand why  
he would not believe the same. 

(you see the god in him;  
the sky residing in his eyes,  
the ice under his command,  
his beauty too much for mortal eyes.) 

he tells you, on the  
478,081st minute of the year  
that he has changed his mind. 

“I found my god,”  
he whispers in the night, his heat  
a blanket curled up around your back. 

“Who?” you ask, thinking of the gods  
you know from home. 

“You,” he says, the simple word  
a prayer bestowed upon your head  
as he clasps his hand over yours. 

you think of him  
whispering your name in supplication,  
pressing kisses to your feet in worship,  
kneeling before you as one would an idol, 

and you understand. 

“You’re my god too,” you whisper,  
a blessing kissed upon your clasped hands  
as you bask in his warmth. 

he laughs, warm and gentle and loving,  
and for all that it would sound unkind  
from a being beyond your grasp,  
you already know better.

this god in your arms  
loves you too.


	14. this soul exposed, made into your home

my soul is yours to read  
my mind a garden of love in your name  
and you create in me a paradox:  
a man vulnerable, lungs laid bare,  
and a man strong, heart full  
with trust and devotion.

i am naked under your hands  
heart bare and ribs unfolded  
to the you who loves me,  
wants me,  
needs me as i am

and i have not loved, never loved  
with such purity as i have  
when i opened myself to you,  
welcoming you into this heart of mine.  
  
you have made me yours,  
made your mark and carved yourself  
into this body, adoring and  
reverent 

and i have never been so grateful  
never filled with as much fear, excitement  
and love as much as i have  
when i chose to stay  
close to you.


	15. you have made me yours, and i never want to be anything else

this heart has lived in the ether  
since the first moment these feet  
made its home on the ice. 

floating, flying,  
i did not understand loneliness  
did not know love  
until you took me by the hand  
and pulled me into your warmth.

do you know  
that you are my anchor? 

that you have made this heart settle  
from its wayworn, lonely life? 

you have tied me down,  
made your brand in the gold  
wrapped around my finger 

and i have never been happier  
as i am now, to be claimed,  
wanted,  
loved for who i am  
than who i could be.


	16. a love letter for home

carved into the spaces of your hands  
is my home, a puzzle-perfect fit  
to twine around my own. 

i was never lost before you  
(never lonely, never alone  
as the lion believed himself to be king  
before man came along)  
but you found me, still.

you found me and made me whole,  
made me strong, made me weak,  
the universe’s ancient stardust, iron and golden  
in this body’s blood remade  
to collide with your galaxy.

i love you, do you know? 

i love you, i do. 

you possess this heart in your grasp  
despite the precariousness of your own cage of bones  
and i am yours to do with as you will;  
to love, to be loved, or used according to your whims. 

(and i am so grateful, for all that your heart can be deaf  
you love me still, love me true,  
love me for the man that i am  
than the man i could be, for you.)


	17. eros, reborn

this body is reborn in his care  
made from uncharted territory into  
paradise behind the veil, sweet innocence  
a playful temptress in fishnet and stretch lace-  
but only ever his.

their eyes are on you, their breaths  
caught in the sway of your hips  
and what power you thought you never had  
is a veritable garden now, blooming  
in the love you hold close  
to your chest.

and yet - 

you are his,  
for all that they want you. 

your heart is his alone  
your body his island of treasure  
and your breath his to kiss away  
as he lays claim to the home  
he finds in you.

you are eros remade,  
seduction the flushed face  
of man in the embrace of pleasure  
while retaining the purity of his youth;  
a masterpiece in the making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was also posted for Yuuri Week Day 5, with the themes "rebirth" and "eros"! [Here's the link](http://jadedgalvanizer.tumblr.com/post/163486563463/this-body-is-reborn-in-his-care-made-from) for the tumblr version, if you want to check it out there along with my other works ♥
> 
> Thank you for reading, and let me know if you liked it in the comments! ♥♥


	18. love lessons for the beginner in love

you know love as this stifling  
warm thing settling in the pit of your stomach  
accompanied by words of false praise,  
as though pity, as though sympathy  
would offer you comfort when you know  
that you could have been better.  
  
you knew love as concern,  
knew love as home:  
where home was a place to shun,  
a sanctuary you never deserved  
because you haven’t-  
you aren’t-  
yet worthy of its relief.  
  
you thought you knew love  
with all its overwhelming warmth and  
grating attempts at solace  
  
but you didn’t.  
  
not really.  
  
not until winter came with spring’s bloom  
and god himself came to raise you to the heavens  
becoming a man before your very eyes  
because he was,   
             he is,   
                  he continues  
growing into loving you.  
  
he teaches you that love  
is not one thing over the other  
and that it is a comfort  
in much the same way  
that it can be smothering.  
  
he teaches you that love begins with you,  
that love can be a strength, given the chance,  
and that love is all he ever wants to,  
all he ever could,  
feel  
when he is with you.  
  
by his side, you learn  
that love is more than words  
can ever hope to express  
and that you are loved  
far more than you could ever know.


	19. on love

ocean waves on waiting shores  
come knocking on these iron doors  
“let us in,” their voices say;  
your heart declines, “please go away.” 

you are not blind, you see their truth  
their concern is unwanted, for all it’s uncouth  
your feelings are yours, you hate when they pry  
though your lungs are drowning, they don’t need to see you cry 

then your god comes along, his poodle in tow  
says you’ve caught his attention (though you don’t know how)  
your cage is unlocked, your heart in his grasp  
you let him in thinking that this all will not last

but god becomes man, and man becomes yours                 
you start to relearn what it means when a heart soars  
with your golden ring the mark of a love owned  
you both take your steps in sharing your hearts’ load 

“this is what love is,” he says, dressed in white  
his hands are in yours, your love in his life  
tears are in your eyes, your smile at its widest,  
“you opened my heart to all this,” you say,

this is love, at its brightest.


	20. but i do, oh, i do

it scared me, for all that i act like it didn’t  
that first time you pushed me away-

that first time when it mattered  
when i could already recall a name  
to that youthful, grief-stricken face-  
  
that first time, alone in a country  
that i could not yet call home  
when you looked at me as if the call of your heart  
was not your own  
and i was here  
open and vulnerable  
in more ways than one.  
  
do you know  
how hard this heart beats  
for you?  
  
do you know  
just how much you’ve brought  
into this cold, lonely,  
uninspired life?  
  
(you gave me everything and more  
and you don’t even know it.)  
  
you call me god and refuse to hear the prayers  
of this faithful follower, thinking:  
“I’m not good enough, not yet,”  
when you already were, already are,  
always will be.  
  
i called you student, myself your coach,  
but did you really think i could leave my life behind  
so whimsically, so carelessly,  
for no deeper reason at all?  
  
did you really think  
that i could not love you?


	21. all’s fair in love and war (and my heart in war has only ever been yours)

Later on, with a heart full of love and contentment,  
Yuuri will tell you why he gave you the only gold  
you’ve ever wanted to hold onto.

“I was scared you would leave, even if I knew  
that you aren’t as fickle as people think you to be,”  
he would say, the soft smile on his face  
just like the moon on a starry, starry night.

(Unbelievably gorgeous, and ever brighter  
in the backdrop of darkness and twinkling little lights.)

“And I was selfish. I wanted proof  
that you were mine in some way, that we were connected  
beyond the ice that brought you to me.”

Then he looks up at you;  
his eyes a molten brown, too sweet  
to be anything but loving  
and says,

“It’s only fair to make you mine, isn’t it? After all,

I’ve always been yours.“


	22. when was it (that i first fell in love with you?)

was it love? that first time  
that I found you, wondered  
at the grace you had in every move,  
and the sparkle in your eyes

would i ever know?  
  
religiously, i followed you  
made every step of yours my own,  
pushed myself in ways i never would have  
if you hadn’t inspired me, made me choose  
to be someone better

you were beauty embodied,  
confidence and charm defined,  
and i wanted to be you, wanted  
to be closer, more,

_more._

and here we are, your hand  
graced with a ring the same as mine  
and i still wonder, sometimes,  
was it love, then?

child-like, innocent in its desire,  
reverence in every pore of me,  
or was it only ever love  
when i knew you as you, and not just  
the legend gracing all four of my walls?

perhaps i’ll never know, in all your loveliness  
just when it was i began my descent into loving you,  
crossing the borderline of youthful admiration  
into a love that sees your flaws, and wants you anyway

still, i know this to be true, even with our struggles,  
and your heart so precariously left in my hands without warning  
(or so i had believed, the me of today  
so quickly forgetting inebriation’s embrace)

as with the sun’s every ascent, unswerving  
in its existence, my heart remains yours  
in much the same way that your love  
will always be mine.


End file.
